Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Arava's Classical Tag ends up in AP High Court

Political lobby influenced CIIL to hike age: Andhra scribe

New Delhi, Feb. 13 (DN)- While agitations are being held and fasts observed in the Karnataka State to convince the Union Government to accord classical language status to Kannada, the issue demanding the same status to Telugu has gone a step further in Andhra Pradesh.

K. Ramachandra Murthy, Editor of Andhra Jyothi daily in Hyderabad, has filed a petition in the High Court challenging the validity of the Union Government's decision in recognising Tamil as a classical language.

The petitioner has argued that by according the status to Tamil the Union Government had discriminated against Kannada and Telugu.

"If history only 1,000 year is enough to accord classical status to Tamil, why 1,500 to 2,000 years for Telugu and Kannada," he asked.

The petition also question why Tamil was given the status well ahead of Sanskrit, though considered to be the mother of all Indian languages.

"Due to political considerations, the classical status was given to Tamil and not according the status to equally ancient languages like Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam has hurt the sentiments of linguists and is very surprising at the same time," the petition said adding that this is a clear violation of Article 14 of the Indian Constitution.

Following are the main issues raised by Ramachandramurthy in his petition:

Way back in 2002-03, the Union Home Ministry had considered languages that have a history of 1,000 years, as classical languages.

According to the recom-mendation of the official committee, even Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam language were also eligible for classical status along with Tamil.

The UPA Government after according the status to Tamil made some amendments in last November to the Government Notification dated Oct. 12, 2004, increasing the qualifying age of language from the previous 1,000 to between 1,500 and 2,000.

Some vested interests in Tamil Nadu put pressure on the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) on Mysore, Karnataka, to increase the age of a language from 1,000 to between 1,500 to 2,000 for according classical status.

Considering Tamil language even before according classical status to Sanskrit is an unusual act on the part of the Union Government.

Materials regarding Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam were not reviewed at all while taking decision on Tamil.

Officials Committee Chairman Prof. Gopichand Narang had clearly stated in the report that any language with the history of 500 to 2,000 years could be considered for according classical status.

It is in UPA CMP!

Mysore, Feb. 13 (MRS)- Securing classical status for Tamil was a well calculated plan of political parties in Tamil Nadu particularly DMK, the coalition partner of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA).

According to a linguist from Mysore, the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) of UPA clearly states that the Tamil should be declared as classical language.

He said that, according to his information, the DMK politicians had told the UPA Government that no language should be accorded similar status for at least one year after declaring Tamil as a classical language.

That is how the UPA Government accorded classical language status to Sanskrit in October last, one year ten days after declaring Tamil as classical language.